Lewis Hamilton has finally won again, although it only happened with a little help from Red Bull. After Sebastian Vettel went out of the race, there was nothing that could stop Lewis. Alonso kept close but was no challenge, while Jenson Button finished in 3rd place.

If Webber does get a win it will be in Brazil I think. Mark doesn't have a good feel for the grip of the surface in Yas Marina; he's gone on record to say it as well; and how the general layout of it doesn't suit his driving style. In 2009 he finished 2nd in a Red Bull 1-2; yes, but he was barely hanging on. He was 17s behind Vettel and he was eating up his options; and only just hung on to his 2nd place from Button

"Maintain the GAP! (you ole dawg you!)" was the shot to the head for Mark me thinks. One can never be the same after a deep message like that. It will be very difficult to cure.

For Hamilton his problems are a little deeper. It started with Australia 2010 when he lost trust with his new engineer, then it got worse in Malaysia 2011, Girlfriend problems, Father problems, Racial fear and insecurity (it's obvious he thinks about it), Seeing Vettel run away with everything and the impossiblity to take the fight to him, Run ins with the stewards, Fights with massa, frustrations with Schumacher, Punctures at the worst time, being hit out by your own teammate, breaking up with your GF who has gone to newer man - AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST! BEING BEAT BY YOUR SLOWER TEAMMATE while you weren't even noticing! HAHAHA!!

Hamilton my boy...Got a lot of things to fix before the year is done. Maybe a win at this track (Hey the Bulls will be FAST HERE!!) will start the healing process.

n smikle wrote:"Maintain the GAP! (you ole dawg you!)" was the shot to the head for Mark me thinks. One can never be the same after a deep message like that. It will be very difficult to cure.

For Hamilton his problems are a little deeper. It started with Australia 2010 when he lost trust with his new engineer, then it got worse in Malaysia 2011, Girlfriend problems, Father problems, Racial fear and insecurity (it's obvious he thinks about it), Seeing Vettel run away with everything and the impossiblity to take the fight to him, Run ins with the stewards, Fights with massa, frustrations with Schumacher, Punctures at the worst time, being hit out by your own teammate, breaking up with your GF who has gone to newer man - AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST! BEING BEAT BY YOUR SLOWER TEAMMATE while you weren't even noticing! HAHAHA!!

Hamilton my boy...Got a lot of things to fix before the year is done. Maybe a win at this track (Hey the Bulls will be FAST HERE!!) will start the healing process.

Generally I don't care about what people say. I have to be clear with myself. When everything goes well, people celebrate you, when you make mistakes people criticize you.Sebastian Vettel

raymondu999 wrote:If Webber does get a win it will be in Brazil I think. Mark doesn't have a good feel for the grip of the surface in Yas Marina; he's gone on record to say it as well; and how the general layout of it doesn't suit his driving style. In 2009 he finished 2nd in a Red Bull 1-2; yes, but he was barely hanging on. He was 17s behind Vettel and he was eating up his options; and only just hung on to his 2nd place from Button

They were both lucky that Hamilton had problems with his car that year as well. He slaughtered them in qualifying and was looking good in the race until his car started failing. Think it was his brakes if I remember correctly?

To be fair Hamilton retired from 2nd place rather than 1st place (Vettel jumped him in the stops). McLaren in the end found nothing wrong with the brakes; but they couldn't risk Hamilton turning up at Turn 8 at 320kph and have his brakes not working.

raymondu999 wrote:To be fair Hamilton retired from 2nd place rather than 1st place (Vettel jumped him in the stops). McLaren in the end found nothing wrong with the brakes; but they couldn't risk Hamilton turning up at Turn 8 at 320kph and have his brakes not working.

There was clearly something wrong on race day, the car was getting slower and slower and Hamilton was having trouble slowing it down. I don't know what the issue was in the end but it's officially recorded by the FIA as a problem with the brakes.

Researching the race, Lewis pulled away at 5-7 tenths a lsp at the start,then locked a tyre up heavily and had a major flats pot. Maybe that caused the brake problem.

McLaren said that there was no evidence of anything wrong with any of the brakes, but they had a dodgy reading in the right rear brake on t he telemetry, and McLaren didn't want to risk Lewis going into the big stops to only have brakes fail.

raymondu999 wrote:To be fair Hamilton retired from 2nd place rather than 1st place (Vettel jumped him in the stops). McLaren in the end found nothing wrong with the brakes; but they couldn't risk Hamilton turning up at Turn 8 at 320kph and have his brakes not working.

You kidding right? The brakes had a big air bubble in the carbon and It was not aged properly. IT was essentially faulty brakes. It was dusting away from the second lap. You can watch the race again and see. There is no way pace goes away like that especially with Bridgestone tyres!

I just rewatched it and I couldn't see brake dust in the braking zones; do you maybe have a certain corner/lap where you see the brake dust?

Please don't mind the tacky filenames of the videos; they were made very quickly and on the spot

If anything, when the counter says 48/55 (remember the lap counter used to count backwards in those days; so I think this is lap 8. Or lap 7. Whatever) Ted Kravtiz reported that he asked the McLaren pit wall if anything was wrong; but McLaren says everything is alright. I've trimmed the video section when Ted said this and uploaded it to media fire (Youtube would just take them down).

On Lap 47/55 (not sure if this is relevant) but Hamilton's team radio says that he's losing time in S1 and S3 (he was gaining in S2). But what the hell. Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/?whwaxytdgbftf6s

Martin Whitmarsh then tells Lewis something was wrong in the data; but there's nothing conclusive. But we can't risk you going into the big stops with a dodgy brake". Here: http://www.mediafire.com/?19wg6d7woj0pb7g

I've been playing Lewis's braking actions on 1/5th playback speed on a 61 incher; but even when he locks up violently I don't see brake dust anywhere I'm afraid. There may have been a real brake problem; I'll give you that; but it wasn't one that was giving out brake dust.

I've dug up some stuff on the internet from then; and Ted Kravitz wrote this on his blog; where he says the brakes were alright in that 1st stint:

Ted Kravitz wrote: Some interesting detail on Lewis Hamilton's brake failure. It was caused by a manufacturing error that left a less dense area of carbon material in the middle of one brake pad.

That explains how the brakes worked well in qualifying and were just about all right in the first stint of the race.

But when the pad wore down and hit the 'hole', it quickly wore out, the temperatures went through the roof and total brake failure would have resulted, had McLaren not retired Hamilton on safety grounds.

Except for Ted Kravitz's blog there doesn't seem to be conclusive evidence that anything was wrong with the brakes.